BRANDS HOLD ON
Government hasn’t lived up to its promise to use free open-source software in preference to paying for it from companies like Microsoft.
Open-source software is making progress with some state institutions but is far from replacing proprietary software in government as a whole.
Proprietary software developer Microsoft has maintained its foothold in a market said to be worth R11bn/year.
Microsoft public affairs director Ashley de Klerk says the group increased sales to the public sector by a whopping 30% on a year-on-year basis in the 2006 financial year. Microsoft is managing to hold its own despite government’s strong leaning towards open-source.
The State Information Technology Agency (Sita), which is responsible for co-ordinating the state’s information technology resources, decided to put the squeeze on proprietary software developers three years ago, when it began encouraging government departments to use free rival software.
The decision came after Sita received a R485m bill for 100000 three-year licences from Microsoft in 2002.
A year after the change in policy, billionaire Mark Shuttleworth started a campaign to promote open-source software in SA.
Within days, Microsoft launched a counter campaign, arguing that its products were superior to open-source software.
De Klerk says the reason Microsoft has been able to hold its own is no great secret. The group has been quietly making the point to public-sector customers that free software isn’t exactly free as customers still have to pay for maintenance and other costs related to its implementation.
He says Microsoft’s success with government institutions comes from matching their requirements with the best solution to meet their needs.
Microsoft’s achievement in the public sector does not mean open-source has failed to take hold, says Nhlanhla Mabaso, manager of the Open Source Centre at the state-funded Meraka Institute. He says the SA Revenue Service, Sita and the department of science & technology are all using some kind of open-source software.
Mabaso says a growing technology market, “established buying patterns” in some government departments, and long-standing buying agreements are supporting Microsoft’s sales in the public sector.
But Mabaso is not too concerned about the slow uptake of open-source software in the public sector because, he says, it takes time to migrate to a new software format.
“There are many organisations, cities and states that have decided to go open source and it has taken them years to do so,” he says.
He says lack of branding is one of the biggest problems when it comes to awareness of open-source software. He cites as an example Microsoft’s launch last month of software in local languages, which received wide media coverage. An open-source campaign that has been doing similar work for the past few years has not received as much media support.
Mabaso doesn’t believe government is being cynical in looking to open-source software as a way to put pressure on prices from companies like Microsoft. He believes government is serious about open-source but concedes that state institutions that indicate they are looking at open-source tend to get better discounts on proprietary software.
He says government’s policy is not meant to put proprietary software developers at a disadvantage. He points out that even they are allowed to provide open-source solutions.
Even Microsoft is getting on the open-source bandwagon. It announced last month it was going into partnership with open-source software developer XenSource.
The use of open-source software is set to increase, particularly in the public sector, says Andrea Di Maio of technology analyst firm Gartner. He says 20% of all software worldwide will be based on open-source and that the percentage in government will be higher because there is a growing trend to use more specialised software.
Di Maio says this can already be seen in local government, where a trend is developing for municipalities to share software specifically for their needs under a new concept called “community source”, which restricts software-sharing to government communities.
“This is what makes government so special. The public sector is the only space where this can happen,” Di Maio says.
INet-Bridge || Discuss this article
Loading ...